Category: Top Dog

My partner and I adopted our puppy about 4–5 months ago. He’s an American Staffy/GSD mix, and we got him when he was 10 weeks old. He was neutered early through the rescue we adopted him from. He’s been crate trained since the beginning and honestly loves his crate. He settles really well on his own, he’s very smart, learns quickly, and isn’t reactive. He seems to genuinely enjoy other animals and people.

The issue we’re having is his aggression toward us during play. When he gets frustrated or overstimulated, which can happen very fast, he snaps and starts biting and nipping us. Sometimes it feels like he’s trying to herd or control us. He’s a confident dog overall, but this behavior is really concerning.

Something else I find a little odd is that he never barks at anything. He doesn’t bark at noises, people, or other animals. The only times he’s vocal are when he needs something, and when he’s trying to attack or control us. That’s it.

Most of this happens when we’re outside playing. If we try to stand up or stop the game, he immediately jumps, lunges, and bites our hands and arms. We’re constantly covered in bruises and scratches. We always keep toys nearby to redirect him, and sometimes that works, but other times he gets hyper focused on biting us if we do something he doesn’t like, like ending play or standing up.

He also does this during zoomies. He’ll run around like crazy, then suddenly run up to one of us while we’re sitting, stare for a split second, then bark, lunge, and bite hard.

He gets plenty of exercise and sleeps about 15–16 hours a day, so it’s not like he isn’t getting enough activity or rest. I’m just really worried and don’t know what to do. I need advice.

8 month old cane corso/lab(?), male, been in home 6 months

This is half a vent and half a request for advice.

My parents have 4 dogs. 3 of them are small adult dogs and two of them are seniors. The fourth is an 8 month old cane corso mix. Puppy has spent literally every day we've owned him bullying the older dogs. He is constantly chewing our 4 year old female corgi mix on the ears and legs and she obviously dislikes it but he is 4 times her size and she has a nervous personality. He stomps on the yorkie and chihuahua because they bark loudly when he does it and their backlash just eggs him on. He hasn't injured any the older dogs but they absolutely despise him and start barking extremely loudly as soon as he becomes remotely hyper. A lot of posts I've seen talk about puppies learning their actions will not be tolerated after their "puppy pass" runs out but the other dogs have been extremely opaque about hating him for as long as we've owned him, and it has done nothing to stop him. Any physical defense they enact is ignored because he is so much larger than them.

Nothing we do curbs his behavior. Verbal discouragement does nothing. Physically separating him does nothing. Every time we walk him he beelines straight for the corgi to go chew on her. Playing with him doesn't tire him out, he's half as tall as me and weighs almost 80 pounds, and he hasn't gotten the memo of "no biting or jumping" no matter how much we correct him so trying to tire him out is physically dangerous.* He has constant access to large bones and toys to chew on but half of his hyper biting sprees are started because another dog (usually the corgi) is chewing on something and he wants to steal it from them. We don't have a fenced yard so we can't put him outside to cool down.

*My father plays with him daily but he also is way too lenient about letting the puppy bite him.

I quite frankly desperately wish my parents had never adopted him, but they are determined not to rehome him and if I were to suggest it to them I would get shut down quickly because I have an obvious bias against him. I am extremely sick of his constant biting and the nonstop dog yelling at night from when he gets the zoomies so I'm trying to curb it since neither of them take training him that seriously. I don't have income or a license so I can't take him to obedience training courses.

Edit: I forgot to mention, we take him to the dog park at least twice a week and he is totally different around strange dogs. He is timid and unaggressive around dogs bigger than him and plays pretty normally with other dogs. It's just our other dogs that he can't behave around.

The title pretty much sums it up. While inside my pup's recall is getting better indoors, it seems like as soon as we get anywhere with stimuli he loses all function. I am irrationally angry as I write this (he just ran around outside for 15 minutes while I tried to get him to come) and need some encouraging advice.

With such a high energy breed (GWP/Lab) I need his recall to be as good as possible. How did you guys do it?

I have an 8-month-old beagle who is refusing to eat kibble. Despite trying four different brands, he continues to reject all of them. I made the mistake of giving him home-cooked food after listening to various people, and now he is underweight. The vet has advised that we should only give him kibble, but it has been a struggle for the past three weeks. Some days he eats a little, while other days he eats nothing at all. Recently, he even stole a pack of vegemite rolls from the kitchen shelf and ate them all. Now, we are back to square one, and he is completely refusing to eat kibble. What should I do?